My girlfriend recently purchased a package of OSCAR MAYER Selects Angus Beef Franks. When she got them home and started to prepare her meal, the odor from the package told her to pick something else for dinner. They had gone bad. When she wrote to the company to complain, they sent her this letter:
Thanks for taking the time to let us know about your recent experience with OSCAR MAYER Selects Angus Beef Franks. There’s nothing more important to us then giving you, and every one of our consumers, high-quality products.
For this reason, we are sorry to hear that the product you purchased did not meet your expectations.
We regret any inconvenience you may have experienced and have enclosed reimbursement for your purchase. We appreciate you contacting us, as it’s with the help of people like you that we continually improve the products we offer.
To Label Or Not To Label? That Is The Question
So, why am I writing about this? Because the expiration date for OSCAR MAYER Selects Angus Beef Franks is on the inside of the package. You can’t read it until the package is opened. Inconvenient? I’d say so. To label or not to label? Well, duh. Label! But do it right. Stores need to stop carrying products that don’t have proper labeling.
Speaking of proper labeling, the other day I was shopping for cranberry juice. Reading the label revealed a warning that GMO sugar (from beets) was included in the ingredients.
“Look at that!” I cried to no one in particular. “They’re labeling the GMOs on the cranberry juice.”
“Ah, yes.” A woman with an accent looked over my shoulder. “They must do this. It is the law.”
“Really?” I was all excited. I had previously believed the food industry was too powerful for GMO labeling to ever occur. Connecticut, for example, was playing around with some wimpy legislation that said they’d label GMOs by 2018 if other states that border us labeled GMOs, too. C’mon, you guys! That’s embarrassing.
“In my country, we ban GMOs,” she said before moving on. She was pretty smug for a foreigner.
I whipped out my cell phone like my daughter taught me, and Googled it. The results were sooooo disappointing. In the article U.S. GMO food labeling bill passes Senate, they discuss a bill filled with loopholes for the factory food producers. No wonder it passed. C’mon, you guys!
In my humble opinion, we should all be Anti-GMO-In-Our-Foods.
Why? Because there are no long-term tests on what they do to the human body (except for the one being conducted on the American population that currently eats them now…the results will be available in 20 years or so).
It may turn out that none of the GMOs will harm us, but the point is
We Don’t Know What GMOs Do To Our Bodies
There is no data on how GMOs interact with the medicines our population consumes. There is no data on the effect of GMOs on cancers, diabetes, depression, obesity, ADD, Alzheimers, etc. There is no data on how GMO corn interacts with GMO beet sugar, or GMO soy or GMO wheat (all of which are red flag foods for people who have cancer, diabetes, depression, obesity, etc). There is no data on how any of the GMO foods interact with the growth hormones fed to our livestock, or the antibiotics they ingest.
To Label or Not To Label?
There is no data on the effect of GMOs on pregnant women, newborns, toddlers, school-age kids, developing young bodies, young professionals, adults, seniors or the elderly. If GMOs adversely affect our student population, and their foreign counterparts are GMO-clean, how is the USA going to compete in the global economy with a subpar workforce?
If you decide to go non-GMO, in twenty or thirty years, after the research has been done, you will be in one of two groups:
- the GMO avoiders who are thankful they didn’t consumed untested GMOs
- the GMO avoiders who missed out on twenty years of snack foods and sweets when they really could’ve eaten them safely (in which case, your waistline will thank you)
My advice is to err on the conservative side and avoid GMOs until they’ve been scientifically tested. Let the others experiment with their bodies.
One last note about sweeteners. A teaspoon of non-GMO cane sugar has only 16 calories in it. Unless you are severely diabetic, it would be better for your body to have a little real sugar than chemical sweetness. Research is hinting the fake sugars create cravings that are tied to the obesity epidemic (but that’s a rant for another day).
Have you tried any of these brands? I’d love to hear from you. (I love Amy’s frozen dinners.)
Your thoughts on Stevia?
The first time I tried Stevia in my tea (it was in the form of a powder dissolved in water), I didn’t like the bitter aftertaste, and I didn’t feel well after I had it. I felt gross, like I had just eaten 5 candy bars on an empty stomach. Our bodies evolved to recognize bitter as being undesirable, so if it’s bitter, I don’t bother with it.
The internet is full of confusion on the subject. Stevia feels like some big experiment. It has not been part of the American diet long enough for any definite bad effects to be verified. I’m suspicious of what I read because they tout it as “natural” but they synthesize it. Whole foods don’t need to be synthesized. Personally, if it’s not a real food, I don’t eat it.
The real issue is that people want a justifiable way to have something sweet EVERY DAY. That doesn’t sound healthy to me. A teaspoon of sugar has 16 calories. If you put 3 teaspoons of sugar in your beverage, that’s a whopping 48 calories. If you have that once a day, and no other sweets, it would not be a problem. But the people in my life don’t stop with 1 small drink. They have a blah-blah-blah-grande drink with a pastry, and a sweet protein bar (that’s code for candy bar) for a snack, and a (diet) soda at lunch, and pop an offered candy in their mouth when they visit some office, and a dessert after supper. Sugar isn’t the problem. Over-indulgence is the problem. Stevia, Agave and the other sweeteners will not solve the over consumption problem.